face paint epidemic
by the milliner's rook
Summary: AU. In which Byakuya is a married man and Nel is Rukia's babysitter. It's just a crush, she tells herself, that manifests in the form of pictures on her face and wanting to draw on his.


Rukia is that canvas that giggles and smiles, and struggles to stay still when Nel presses the sponge to her face and shrieks with laughter when the paintbrush curves away from the slope of her cheek. She squirms and wriggles as the colours of white and black make their way known on her face, never forgetting to smile. Always with the look of innocence, free from blame.

"I'm ticklish!" Rukia says, head held high. Grinning like a sugar overdose, she retreats step by step as Nel patiently sets down her equipment, anticipating what happens next.

"I'll show _you_ ticklish!" Nel pounces and tickles her for real, not stopping until the seven year old is laughing and mumbling and wriggling all at once. She has the tiniest hands.

"Please, Nel-chan, I want to be a rabbit." Her make up is smudged from pressing her chin to her shoulders, but still, those are the words that Nel ceases her playfulness.

Relenting, Nel asks her. "More than anything?" The tips of her fingers are lazily tapping a tune on Rukia's de-socked foot.

"More than _anything._" Rukia nods furiously, determined in her self-satisfied way, which makes her too cute for words. Her foot escapes Nel's grasp, and Rukia is possibly the main reason Nel became a baby-sitter because of her tiny hands and pretty smiles. "You can be a rabbit too!"

"Well…" Nel considers the idea, eyebrows lifting. The mirror shines before them, and Nel wonders how Rukia would paint on her face, dabbing the colours on like mash potatoes, sprinkling whiskers like the twist of a pepper-shaker. "We'd be very cute bunny girls."

Rukia scrambles to her feet and crushes her into a hug. Nel grins, and tries to brush a few strands behind her ears.

Later, when Rukia opens her eyes and stares at her reflection, her own work of art messily placed on Nel's face – full of the Kuchiki grace, she is quick to add, her eyes widen and mouth opens in surprise. She reaches towards the mirror, unable to believe it. Then frowns, because something is missing.

The only thing they lack is the rabbit hair band, and Rukia is quick to rectify that. Their hair is messy and uncombed, mussed up when free, best to serve the 'wild rabbit' look, with a few goes at trying to fit the hair bands on their heads.

Then she turns, laughs, points at Nel's face, points at her own and _beams._

* * *

><p>Hisana loves the elaborate designs and photographs them every time she catches them, keeping a scrap-book of all Rukia's dimpled smiles. Byakuya is less enthusiastic, indifferent at best; slow to blink if to openly show his disdain.<p>

Nevertheless, he takes it upon himself to drive Nel back home, the journey entirely in silence. Nel stares out the window, trying to catch his translucent face through city lights, the flats of her hands resting on her calves.

Sometimes, when his glass reflection overlaps with the metallic shine of a brighter coloured car, the thought crosses her mind, the urge kept at bay when her hands curl around her knees.

If she mustered the courage to take his face into her hands, hold him steady and paint trees without leaves, branches spreading like veins, streaked in grey, Nel mulls over what might happen.

Maybe his eyes would brighten then.

* * *

><p>The first time it happens is an accident. Nel doesn't realize until it's too late, and by then, her thumbs have smudged dregs of yellow paint on his pristine white shirt, his shoulders tensing beneath her fingertips.<p>

Her face burns in embarrassment.

"S-Sorry!" Stuttering, Nel keeps her head downcast until she regains her balance. Her feet steady and then she steps back, disengaging from his stature, careful about keeping her hands by her side. "Thank you for catching me. I didn't mean to trip." He says nothing as her apology turns to babbling. Mortification spreads past her neck, settling only after Nel relearns how to breathe, and forces the words to turn to nothingness. "Hey," Nel tries again, meeting him eye to eye with a cheerful smile, positivity radiating off her face though she can't feel it inside. "It's washable. This stuff comes out really quickly. Trust me; it's happened plenty of times. My clothes are fine. Yours will be too."

The only response she is gets is a cold blank stare and the slightest inclination of a nod.

Nel's only option is to smile cheerfully once more, and then walk to the bathroom, aware of how the flush spreads throughout her bloodstream, an itch she can't scratch, a knot she can't unfurl, and she ties and reties her shoelaces until she's guaranteed there's no chance of a repeat. She doesn't leave until her hands stop shaking.

By then, Byakuya has changed his shirt.

There's nothing more to be said.

* * *

><p>"Nel-chan, Nel-chan." Rukia says with a yawn, arms looped around her neck as Nel carries her piggy-back style to her bedroom. They have to make a detour first, even if Rukia has rubbed her eyes too many times to make the rainbow that's bridging across her nose little more than multi-coloured clouds. As much as Rukia might like it, Nel's under strict orders that the watercolour can't transfer to her Chappy-themed sheets. Rukia likes to fidget in her sleep, rubbing her face into her pillow, all snuffles and adorableness.<p>

There are butterflies on Nel's face, angels turned people when their wings have flown off without them, and they are left to wander the earth with no shoes on their feet. They stay trapped on her wrists.

"Mm?" Nel turns the taps on. "Hold still, okay?"

"'kay." Violet eyes flutter shut, and Rukia's head tilts forward. "Tired."

"Soon," Nel promises absentmindedly, watching the colours fall away from Rukia's face, water droplets left uncaught.

* * *

><p>It spreads. A pleasant infection, truth be told, and Hisana catches it next, shyly asking after a buoyant Rukia skips to the kitchen if she can be a canvas too. The sky's the limit, and Hisana doesn't know what she wants to be in Nel's aesthetic world of sharp neon lights and soft brush strokes.<p>

"Why face paint?" She asks, curious, and Nel doesn't answer immediately, gazing at her kit instead, chewing on her bottom lip, not sure what to choose. "Why not make up?"

"I'm not sure." Nel admits with a sunny grin, looking back at her friend, self-consciously touching the single pink line that runs across her face. She shrugs. "I just like this form of art."

There's a hat made in the style of a ram buried deep in her satchel, and Nel likes to wear it on cloudless days, when she's out shopping, when she's cycling. It feels comfortable on her head, horns curling into themselves like Tim Burton's crooked circles, and the thought that she's made someone stop and turn their head to observe her makes her happy.

She wants to be seen as a work of art, not a thing of beauty. She wants to be something temporary, a blink-and-you-miss-it opportunity, remembrance dwelling on her for only a fraction of a second, until she knows how to leave her mark on the marrow of bone. A sweeping grand gesture of forever.

Nel doesn't know how Hisana fits in her portfolio.

Experimentally, she picks green and red, the green a flurry of curved lines and pointed flicks of the wrist, the red spilling past one closed eye, not quite perfect until she's smoothed out the edges and added an outline of a darker shade.

Rose briars are drawn on Hisana's face, untamed and angry, while Hisana smiles tentatively, oblivious to the emotion streaked bare on her face.

Art has never needed to be perceived as something beautiful.

"Done," Nel says, subdued, drawing back and nearly stumbling once more. "I'll go get the camera."

When she returns, Rukia is there; nearly identical to her sister when they grin like mad fools.

"Cheese!" She says and snaps the camera.

Rukia likes it.

* * *

><p>There's an autumn leaf painted on her cheek, maple and honey and fire and ash. Tiny curls of silver try and blow like the wind on the other side of her face.<p>

This is her battle armour, Nel decides, her sword and shield when she needs it most. She can pretend this on a spring day, and approaches him.

"Let me face paint you," Nel says, direct and to the point, requesting only this from him. This is her wish before she grows up and moves away to college, and turns her world upside-down, where kitsch becomes camp and camp becomes kitsch, and everything will make sense once she stops looking back to see if he's watching her when she walks to her porch. "Just this once."

He stares at her, the lines on his face softening, and her breath catches.

"Very well." Byakuya agrees, after a moment's consideration when the world spun slowly-slowly-slowly between them.

"Okay," Nel breathes, relieved with a smile, and a simmering blush of happiness spreads to her fingertips, "okay. Please, sit."

She picks up her paintbrush, lets it balance and feel steady in her hands before she moves; then reaches over and close the distance between them. Nel's thought about this moment so many times, innocently scaling the contours of her face with the pads of her fingers, and not so innocently, pressing in so close that she's certain that he must feel her heart beating against him when their mouths meet. But now, she tilts his face and sees close up the edges of his cheekbones through telescopic lenses, angled by her finger and thumb.

"Just relax." Nel murmurs, needing to hear the words for herself. "This won't take long."

* * *

><p>Nel paints birds on his face.<p>

They fly like birds crossing the horizon, migrating to warmer waters, and in pursuit of trees they know so well, not born from her imagination. She's never seen a more beautiful living canvas than him.

He's hers, right now, claimed by wearing the mask she chooses to give him. Later, she'll be gone, and he'll wash away every last trace, but now, while he wonders about the symbolism that's not there, she won't tell him about caged birds, the songs they sing, and what they pine for, and slowly crush the hope that if he loves her back, he'll find a way back to her once she lets him go.

"Yeah." Deciding that this is it, Nel lets her gaze linger on him, trying to memorize this moment as much as she can. "You look great."

Nel grins, and ignores the stab of pain in her chest, when he tentatively smiles back, grey eyes far lighter than she's ever seen before.


End file.
